The most cost effective and definitive way to treat pet allergies is to give up the pet and clean the home thoroughly.  You would see a great improvement in your condition.  But most people will not give up their pet and the following information is for those people.     Pet allergies are a common cause of year round symptoms such as chronic stuffy nose, pain and pressure on the sinuses, runny nose, recurrent sinus infections, asthma flare-ups, sleep disturbances, snoring, sleep apnea  and skin allergies.  Having a pet sleep in your bed is the worst thing one can do who is allergic to them.   You are being nice to the pet but being very unfair to yourself or your spouse if they happen to be allergic to them.    Halfway measures such as keeping the pet out of the bedroom, using air filters, bathing the pets more often and vacuuming the carpet and mattress etc  more often, have not  been shown to have any significant  beneficial effect on the way you feel,  even though the amount of pet dander in the air is reduced.

One can try taking medications to alleviate the allergy symptoms, but medications have significant side effects.  Antihistamines can cause drowsiness, dry mucus membranes, constipation, lack of concentration at work or studies, blurred vision and impaired cognition.  Nasal steroids can cause nose bleeds.  These are in addition to the high cost of lot of these medications.  If you have year round allergies than you have to be on these medications all the time.

The other option is that of Allergy shots.  One could try allergy desensitization shots to build up immunity to the pet dander allergens.   The shots change the way  our body’s immune systems reacts to these allergens and this in turn helps with not only improvement in the sinus problems, it also helps with other common allergy problems that are generally co-manifested in these patients. One common one being asthma.   Several studies have shown efficacy of allergy shot treatment in cat allergic patients.